


(Scientific) Control

by cherrybubblegum



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: M/M, aphrodisiacs (mild), it's exactly as contrived as you think it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12232806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrybubblegum/pseuds/cherrybubblegum
Summary: Leo and Takumi find creative ways to escape the tedium of political duties. When Leo asks for Takumi's help in testing a tome said to cause feelings of infatuation, Takumi worries he may have agreed to more than he can handle.





	(Scientific) Control

Takumi relished time spent away from Castle Shirasagi. It wasn’t that Takumi disliked his home, but since the war, matters in Hoshido were on the upswing and getting better each day. Although he’d never say as much to his brother, Takumi thought things were going _too_ well. There were four members of the royal family at the state’s beck and call, and simply not enough issues regarding its people, its policies or its regulations to keep everyone busy. There was never enough to do –not that the fact would ever diminish Ryoma’s list of things needing done.

Meetings with representatives from the seaside villages to discuss supply routes and fishing zones used to happen over the course of a rushed 30 minutes. Now they seemed to fill the time of two hours just because there was nothing else pressing for anyone’s attention. Takumi’s mind often wandered to possible excuses to grant him absence from the next meeting –and the one after that, if he was lucky.

His friend sympathized with him in this. Leo was in a very similar position in Nohr, and so they found it mutually beneficial to make visits with one another, under whatever context might seem vaguely agreeable to their kings.

Considering their nonessential roles in matters of policy and their general state of tedium, they had grown increasingly open-minded to each other’s whims. Takumi could hardly say no to clearing an old Nohrian mine of enchanted monsters when the alternative was scribing for his brother’s diplomatic affairs. Likewise, Leo was more than content to accompany Takumi to investigate the kinshi breeding stocks in the south. Takumi lent a hand at organizing the repair of a northern Nohrian bridge. Leo was strangely overjoyed at the prospect of testing small-scale farming for use in remote villages. Takumi could now successfully incubate wyvern eggs. Leo had become a proficient appraiser of antique tea sets.

Of course, nearly all these activities could theoretically be carried out by government officials, hired rangers, dedicated scientists… but why waste the resources when they had the time to spare? (This was their official excuse and it did a surprisingly good job) This give-and-take of tasks fulfilled Takumi’s desire to remove himself from the truly boring activities of the state, as well as his wish to spend time with his unlikely friend from the war. He could only assume Leo’s wants were likewise being met by this arrangement.

This convoluted agenda would have caused Takumi only satisfaction had it not been for a more covert motivation behind his actions. Somewhere between their small-scale adventures and disregard of political responsibilities, Takumi had picked up on an underlying, secondary pull that kept bringing him back to Prince Leo’s side. These feelings of affection had nothing to do with a platonic and mentally stimulating friendship. He rejected the idea at first. In love? With Leo? _In love with Prince Leo?_ But the more he seemed to deny his own eagerness to please, the cliché heart-flutters, the feeling of what he could only assume was _longing_ when they were apart –the more it seemed to eat him from the inside until he had no choice but to accept it. Angrily.

Confessing had obviously been out of the question. Likewise, distancing himself was something he simply couldn’t fathom. And so he was stuck indefinitely festering in his secret feelings of sentiment. At first he’d been worried Leo would catch on immediately. Takumi knew he wasn’t much of an actor. As it turned out, the threat of a ruined friendship was enough incentive to activate theatrical skills he never knew he had. Smart as the other prince was, it seemed as though Takumi’s auxiliary feelings had gone undetected.

It was a bitter-sweet success.

They spoke often about things they had concerns about, things that bothered them, things they found enlightening. He’d never found much reason to lie to his friend before. The fact Takumi had to suffer through this strange, raw emotion alone was some kind of irony. Leo would occasionally ask him in one of his letters, “What’s been on your mind lately?” and he would need to walk away from his desk for a moment to avoid responding with any of the equally horrifying and sentimental thoughts which had the nerve to cross his mind that day.

Being bored didn’t help a wandering mind. But he’d gotten into the habit of conquering boredom by doing things with Leo. It was a strange balance Takumi decided he had no jurisdiction in messing with.

So from the outside, things went on as usual between the two princes.

Takumi had agreed to help Leo with yet another matter, _testing a spell_ , and had ridden to the Northern Fortress in haste, happy to have a reason to do so. Of course, there was never any reason for haste, so the two of them took their leisure and spent the earlier part of the day sharing a hearty Nohrian lunch and engaging in unimportant talk (“gossip”, their sisters would claim).

Eventually their aimless conversation must have hit something that reminded Leo of the original task at hand. One moment they were discussing in jest how Xander was married to his work (and how such a union would sadly produce no heirs) and the next Leo was unlocking his cabinet of restricted tomes.

He’d been given the job of locating and securely storing (or destroying) any potentially dangerous tomes scattered in in the country. During King Garon’s rule, a lot of unsavory magics had been meddled with. Takumi was quite open in his own ignorance in all things magical, so it wasn’t often Leo involved him in these tasks. Leo had spoken to him about some of the truly heinous kinds of spells he’d stumbled upon since the war had ended however, and so if nothing else Takumi was properly curious as Leo returned to sit casually on the arm of the chair he’d been sitting on, idly flipping the pages of a crimson coloured tome. Leo had a subtle flair for dramatics, as he seemed to caress the pages with a wistful expression –but Takumi decided he wouldn’t have any of it today.

“Enough with the suspense. What is it?”

Leo’s eyes moved from the pages up to meet his. “Takumi, this is called a _tome_. Surely you’ve seen one?” Mirth tickled his question.

Takumi ignored the bait. “What does it _do_? Stop hearts? Explode heads? Expand someone’s tongue until they suffocate?”

“I’m glad you have no interest in magic, your imagination is terrifying.” Takumi just waited, knowing very well that the tomes locked in that cabinet all did very comparable things to what he’d described. “This is a tome of _love.”_

Alarm bells started going off in his head. “…Love?”

“I know, silly right? I’ve renamed it the ‘Tome of Infatuation’ since ‘love’ seemed inappropriate, considering the whole emotion would be magically fabricated. It’s a bit of a mouthful though.”

Takumi leaned back in his stuffed leather armchair, trying to look composed. Takumi’s brain was already doing somersaults in the background. Was this a trap? Had Leo finally caught on to something? Maybe he hadn’t been as careful as he’d thought? Maybe the spell would cause him to reveal his feelings? Or maybe the spell was completely made-up, and Leo was seeing if he’d refuse to participate. Or maybe Leo had already used the spell on him, months ago, and that’s why he’d been in lovesick turmoil? Or _maybe_ …

Or maybe Takumi was overthinking things and there was no deeper meaning to this at all.

“That doesn’t seem dangerous. Why do you even need to test such a thing?” He tried to casually wipe his sweaty palms on the Nohrian riding pants he’d worn on the way here.

Leo’s face showed honest surprise. “You don’t think infatuation can be dangerous?”

“Well, I mean, nobody _dies_.”

Leo seemed to consider this. “Perhaps. But how might have things played out differently during the war if, say, Ryoma had fallen in love –sorry, became _infatuated_ –with Xander? It’s truly manipulation at its most subtle. All the supposed mind-control spells I’ve found had been ineffective at best. But if this one actually works then I think it could do horrible damage in the wrong hands.”

Takumi’s face must have shown exaggerated horror at the hypothetical romance because Leo began to laugh.

“Sorry. Although maybe then they’d stop harping on us to find potential wives?” He stood up and began slowly pacing the floor, his high boots clacking importantly on the marbled floor.

“Officially, I need to test all the unregulated tomes I find in order to check the claims of their effects. Unofficially?” He shrugged, “I’m curious. Magic is a curious thing. As you may have guessed, testing this kind of thing on field mice doesn’t give very… conclusive results.”

“I’m sure.” Takumi’s mind was still busy gauging the situation in his mental periphery. “But, umm, why involve _me_ in this one?” He internally screamed at the way his voice cracked. “There’s plenty of people working in the castle –”

“—I feel like that would come across poorly, out of context. ‘Prince of Nohr uses trusted subjects for magical experiments’? We’re still trying to work on building people’s trust on this side of the border.”

“Okay, then what about your retainers…?”

An interesting smile played on Leo’s lips as if he’d anticipated this line of questioning. “I fear Niles would give me… tampered results. Of course I trust him deeply but in this particular, er, category of things I admit his actions can be questionable.” He added after a pause, “besides, it’s only you I trust with my most _delicate_ and _meaningful_ work.”

Takumi snorted and crossed his arms, recalling how just last week they’d rode out to a farm simply to verify one farmer’s claim that they’d grown the biggest pumpkin on the continent. “So you admit then that at least part of this is just curiosity?” Takumi’s mind had finally circled back on itself so that he could only conclude the whole thing was just an unfortunate coincidence, he was probably doomed either way, and that infatuation was dangerous only when the object of said infatuation was into testing emotionally revealing magics.

“Or boredom. Just the same thing that brings us together time and time again.” Takumi tried not to take offence at the suggestion that it was only boredom which resulted in them spending time together, although his chest panged painfully with the ease in which Leo seemed to suggest it. “Probably the same thing which causes you to go out looking for and hunting imaginary creatures.”

“Hey! The mizuchi definitely exists!”

“And so you aim to eradicate the last of an endangered species. We all have our morally grey hobbies. Mine is testing out strange tomes. Which, by the way, is actually something my brother wants me to do.”

Takumi opened his mouth, then closed it. Admittedly, no one asked him to hunt the mizuchi.

“Could you grab those things on the table? Your notes don’t need to be incredibly detailed, but I do want you to try and keep a record of the things I say.”

_Huh?_

Takumi stood, glad to not be the only one sitting anymore, and inspected the items on a small table halfway between the two armchairs. There was a leather-bound notebook, a fountain pen, and what looked like an iridescent piece of glass, about the length of his forearm and about half as wide. He’d noticed them when they’d been talking earlier but Leo had a tendency to bring strange things in and out of his room so he hadn’t given them much thought.

He opened the notebook and read, ‘ _Two hours after initial dose: liver function normal. Movements erratic.’_

Lab notes?

Leo seemed to catch on to his puzzled expression. “Wait, you thought I was going to use the spell on _you?”_

Takumi mentally went over their conversation, trying to catch something he may have missed. He hoped his expression didn’t look as stupid as he felt.

Leo looked almost hurt. “Takumi, this is potentially dangerous magic –of course I wouldn’t aim it at you. We don’t even need to do this, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

His heart fluttered like Leo had hit him with the spell anyways. Or perhaps the tongue-expanding one? He picked up the pane of glass-like material to distract himself. It was shockingly light –as if he was holding paper. It was somewhat transparent; Leo could vaguely be seen mixed in with swirling colours of purple and green. Despite his earlier bravado, Leo seemed to be the one growing uncomfortable, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Interesting.”

“That’s a magical reflector. Be careful with it –obviously it’s quite valuable considering its potential uses in armor. It’s one of the biggest pieces Nohr has.”

Takumi sighed and lowered the glass so he could see Leo clearly again. “So let me get this straight… you use the spell, and I hold this so it bounces back and hits you instead…?”

“Exactly. If allegations are correct, I become infatuated with the first person I see.”

_Me._

“And you want me to take notes?” Takumi couldn’t even feel properly relieved by the turn of events. The gods were surely testing him. Or punishing him. Leo seemed above things like infatuation –he couldn’t begin to imagine how his friend would act. _Although_ , he thought wryly as he tucked the pen behind his ear, _I guess that’s the point of experiments._

“As a means of informal record keeping. I thought it would be better to trust you to the task instead of myself.”

He was thankful no one would be around to take notes on _him_ , because he also had no idea how he would respond to such a turn in character.

Somehow the tenseness in Leo’s jaw had the effect of calming him down… somewhat. It was a rude and mean-spirited reaction but he was taking whatever calm he could in this bizarre situation. He figured they should probably just get on with it –for both their sakes.

“Ha. This is nuts. You’re nuts, you know that?” He turned to face the other man. As an attempt to make this feel more normal, he added, “I’m going to make fun of you afterwards, by the way.”

Leo forced out a laugh. “Of course.”

“There’s some kind of… antidote, right?” Testing illicit emotion-controlling spells with your best friend. Probably still preferable to attending political meetings. Ryoma would be disappointed.

Leo flapped his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, don’t worry about that. I have it all under control.”

Takumi held the notebook in one hand and the reflector in another. “Alright, I trust you to it then. See you on the other side…?”

Leo nodded and took two steps forward, reducing the space between them to little over an arm-span. Takumi lifted the rectangular piece of glass to cover his face. He saw Leo raise the hand that wasn’t holding the tome, and then he felt a tremendous force hit the pane. It was surprising not only it its strength, which he would have normally expected to shatter something as seemingly light and delicate as the reflector, but also in that it was _hot_. He had to force himself not to simply release the glass onto the floor in shock and pain.

“Fuck!” He turned around and gingerly put the glass down on the chair behind him, shaking his hand as if that would relieve some of the throbbing. Remembering Leo, he tried to put the pain in the back of his mind, even as his eyes watered.

Leo was looking at him in awe –surely that was the work of the tome, since he was quite certain he looked pretty stupid just then.

“ _Fascinating_. Absolutely fascinating.” He set the tome down on the other leather armchair.

Grabbing the pen from behind his ear (the metal was blessedly cool on his fingers –a small victory) he opened the notebook, deciding to try and find the good humour in this.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Vision, normal. Balance, steady.” The back of his hand went up to his forehead. “Skin slightly heated.”

Takumi scribbled as Leo spoke. “Pfft. Tell that to my fingers.”

“But absolutely no emotional changes whatsoever.”

Takumi didn’t look up as he continued scribbling. “Ha, so it was a fluke after all. Figures. There’s no way magic could—”

“It’s _completely_ different than last time.”

Takumi stopped mid-word, looking up from the page at Leo, whose eyes seemed to be looking him up and down in wonder and minimal subtlety. “Excuse me?”

“I lied. Or rather, I didn’t tell you everything; I tried this same tome with Odin two days ago. Except then I _did_ end up very much infatuated with him. So, obviously, I had to see what would happen if I tried it with _you_.”

Takumi didn’t have time to interpret what exactly that meant, although he was tempted to take insult. “You –what? Leo, you’re a dick—”

Leo continued talking, ignoring Takumi’s comments. “Truth-telling properties…? _Bizarre_. It appears I’m unable to lie now, even if I wanted to. See? Logically I shouldn’t have even said _that_ –it puts me at further disadvantage.” Two fingers went to his neck. “Also: pulse, elevated. Increased respiration.” He took a deep breath as if to rectify that effect. “Slight decrease in inhibitions. Mild aphrodisiac properties?”

Leo took a few steps forward as Takumi’s brain malfunctioned. “How do my pupils look? Takumi, are you writing this down?”

Takumi, in fact, was no longer writing this down. His pen scribbled incomprehensibly somewhere off the page when attempting the word “aphrodisiac”. He tried to not let something like Leo in his personal space distract him from the most important fact in this situation. “You already _did_ this with Odin? Then why the hell did you ask me to do it again?” As usual, his anger probably did a good job hiding his other emotions. Not that Leo seemed fazed either way.

Leo spoke as if he was answering the question more for his own benefit than for Takumi’s. “Yes… except when I did this with Odin there was an immediate emotional response; my brain seemed to over-evaluate all positive instances involving him, and partially fabricated some interactions to further put him in my subconscious favour. I was told I acted very genuine, and, in Odin’s words, ‘like a lovesick gentleman, overcome with insurmountable affection’… _Eughh_ , see? I wish I didn’t say that. I told Odin not to tell, and now here I am telling you. You’re looking very nice today by the way –I was thinking that before, actually. I just didn’t mention it because that’s a little bit of a weird thing to say.”

“Yeah, well, you’re seeming suspiciously genuine right now too, so I’m going to have to say this experiment was probably just a repeat –”

“No! See, that’s the thing! You’re missing the point--” In his sudden excitement, Leo stepped forward again, putting himself further into Takumi’s personal bubble. “I suspected I may have already had romantic feelings for you –which is exactly _why_ I wanted to use this magic with you in the first place. To act as my control!”

Takumi looked around warily, hoping Leo was too out of his mind to notice his flushed cheeks. The sensation matched that of his burned fingers. He half expected the castle staff and Leo’s retainers to jump out of the closet and yell “surprise!” and then laugh at how he was almost taking this seriously.

“… your control?”

“ _Scientific_ control. If I reacted the same as I had with Odin, then I could assume my feelings for you were fundamentally at the same level as those for my retainer. However, since I’m experiencing _no_ change in emotional feeling, then I can only assume there is something fundamentally different about my relationship towards you. Something which is negating the effect of the tome… Or perhaps masking it? Of course, I always suspected more-than-friendly feelings towards you, but since it was my first time I couldn’t be sure…”

“Are you saying you used magic to _confirm your feelings_?”

“Of course! How else could I say for certain what I was feeling?”

“Leo, have you ever _felt_ an emotion before?” This back-and-forth had Takumi feeling strangely well-adjusted, as if the situation wasn’t surreal enough already.

“I didn’t want to put our friendship in a compromising situation if there were any doubts.” Leo said this as if it was simply a fact of reason. Perhaps it was.

“That’s… thoughtful.”

A brief smile, and then a hand went up to Leo’s temple and he sighed. “Shit. You know, this isn’t how I planned on confessing. I’m sorry, Takumi.”

It was as if he finally caught up with what was going on. “Gods… you’re being serious.”

It wasn’t exactly a question, but after Leo’s endless stream of babble, his answering silence spoke volumes. Part of him felt poised on the edge, ready to give a confession of his own. But things were feeling a little out of control. There were too many variables and he couldn’t think clearly.

He turned and put down the notebook with shaky hands, relieved to find a reason to remove himself slightly from Leo’s aura. There was only so much oxygen in Leo’s chamber, large as it was, and Leo and his ‘increased respiration’ were clearly hogging it all. He needed to breathe. “Say, why don’t we get you that antidote? Where is it?”

“Ah. You need to kiss me.”

“What?”

“That’s the antidote. Sorry, I probably should have mentioned that before.”

Takumi was almost afraid to turn around, knowing Leo was right there, far too close, an invitation on his lips. Unfortunately, Takumi didn’t have some secondary effects of a spell to make him feel numb to the finer points of this predicament. He tried to push back the panic. Or was it excitement?

When it became clear he was in no rush to turn around, Leo pleaded, surprisingly close to his ear, “Takumi… _please_. Please don’t leave me like this.”

Panic transformed into something entirely different as the plea echoed in his head. He greedily locked it away somewhere in his long-term memory. He turned, slowly, pretending to be unaffected by Leo’s flushed cheeks and imploring eyes. All things considered, he thought he was doing a commendable job. If he survived any of this, he was going to sign himself up for some high-stakes poker tournaments.

“On the, umm, lips?” Takumi found himself tracing the area in question with his eyes.

Leo nodded.

There wasn’t much space to close –just half a step and a lean-in. This wasn’t how he imagined his first kiss to go. He felt months of restraint exploding, bits of resolve splintering and filling the air with dust, making it hard to breathe.

He thought stupidly of those fairy tales his mother used to tell him, of kisses breaking spells, as he smelled the static and felt the heat roll off Leo’s face when he brought their lips together. He’d intended it to be a _Prince Charming_ kiss, light and utilitarian, but he was keenly aware that Leo seemed to react with exactly as much force as he himself exerted. When Takumi pushed just a little bit more (for science!), he felt the push reciprocated back. If Takumi took it just a little bit further, parting his lips ever so slightly…

A _sound_ from Leo abruptly brought Takumi back to his senses and he quickly pulled away. Leo didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed, staring back misty-eyed and panting slightly.

“Fascinating. It turns out I _can_ lie.”

Takumi had a choice insult on his lips but opted for pressing them against Leo’s instead, this time in earnest. He thought he’d been quite daring, but Leo didn’t give him that satisfaction and took it in stride, pulling him closer when he felt Takumi’s hands grip the front of his shirt. Now, Leo seemed willing to push back with a little more enthusiasm than was given. It was almost maddening. The long-repressed buzzing in Takumi’s head suddenly pushing for _more, more, more_ and Leo seemed more than happy to deliver. It was a recipe for escalation.

Takumi felt like the victim of some sort of entrapment, whether purposefully intended or not. Why was this bad, again? He half-heartedly tried to remember why he had any reason to feel anything but ecstatic, although leaving kisses along the length of Leo’s jaw seemed to be taking up a surprising amount of his mental capacities. When he felt a hand move from gripping his waist to his bottom, his hand tangled in Leo’s hair clenched in surprise, which did nothing to slow down their actions.

They must have been moving slowly towards the back of the room as their lips and their hands carried out their impulses, because eventually the back of Leo’s legs pushed up against the solid wooden chest at the foot of Leo’s bed, and with nowhere else to go, any space between their bodies was closed. A moan was muffled into Takumi’s hand as their hips met, interrupting the surprisingly lewd stream of kisses Leo had been leaving on his burned fingers.

Takumi felt Leo roll his hips into his, deliberately this time. He felt the own hips rock in response, chasing the friction. He wanted to kiss Leo’s lips again, as if that would help him think clearly again, but Leo had brought Takumi’s hand back to his mouth, this time putting two of his fingers inside to the first knuckle, teeth grazing as a tongue moved teasingly over the tips.

“Should we stop and talk about this?” His own voice sounded far away and unfamiliar in his ears. He couldn’t shake the thought that he was forgetting something. That something was not right. He figured it was better to voice it now while he was still capable of coherent thought.

Leo removed the fingers from his mouth, leaving a kiss on his fingertips before releasing the hand. “I worry how many more incriminating things I’ll say if I’m given the chance to talk again.” His voice was deep and pooled in Takumi’s belly. “I’m not in the position to be the physically responsible one, unfortunately…”

He chuckled, a rumble in his throat. Takumi felt a pang of guilt as he noted Leo’s dark, unfocused eyes, felt him hard and pressed into his abdomen. Somehow he’d managed to forget about the spell. Although Leo had claimed to be sound of mind, Takumi was quickly seeing how much the brain seemed to take a back seat when the body becomes occupied. There was therefore a subtle alteration in the physical dynamic, which didn’t sit well with him. “Although since we’ve stopped to chat…I’ve already said that unfamiliar emotions are not my forte –does any of this mean you have feelings for me too?”

Takumi wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him because – _honestly_ , did he think he shared his tongue with all his friends? Instead, he just said, “Take the antidote and I’ll tell you.”

“Guilty conscience?” 

_Yes…!_

It was hard to take Leo’s smarm too seriously, with his bangs sticking to his forehead, hair in disarray, and lips reddened with activity.

“Well, it’s not like we’re writing anything down anymore. Unless you’d rather I stop and grab the pen…?”

“Fine.” Leo disengaged himself slightly, and took something out of his pocket. Takumi saw what he thought was an entire sprig of coriander before it disappeared into Leo’s mouth. He started chewing deliberately.

Leo continued looking at him steadily, almost expectantly, for a few seconds before he suddenly covered his face with both hands. “I said… _so much_. Too much. Have I ever spoken so much in my life?” His voice was muffled from behind his digits.

Takumi was almost afraid to ask. “Did you mean any of it?”

He removed his hands, and damn, Takumi had never seen him so red. “Every word. It was all true –but it had no _finesse_ whatsoever! As I said, my feelings were unchanged. My mouth, however, clearly took a run. Just how do you live with wearing your heart on your sleeve like that?”

Leo had a knack for finding just the right thing to say to make Takumi wonder if he was being insulted. “ _Actually_ , I don’t. Do you _know_ how long I’ve had feelings for you? Except I, like a _normal_ person, was perfectly aware of them _and_ did what any sane person does and bottled them up! And I would have done it forever, too! Except you had the _nerve_ to come along and start word-vomiting all your feelings? Months of my effort, wasted!”

Leo looked amused. Takumi was glad –he was only being partially serious, after all. “In my defence, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. We can still pretend it didn’t go down like that. I’ll bring up a nice bottle of wine tonight and try again—”

Takumi brought a finger up to Leo’s lips. “Shh. So yes. I have feelings for you. I really, really like you. Hell, I probably love you.”

“—Now you’re just trying to make this into a competition.”

“My confession was better than yours.”

“Barely.”

They kissed again, gently this time. Clearly a Prince Charming kiss didn’t require either prince to be particularly charming.

Leo tasted like coriander.

“So you mentioned your mouth was on the fritz… what about your hips? Were those within your faculties?”

Their faces were so close they were breathing each other’s air. “You’ll find my hips quite willing and skin significantly less sweaty. My control was questionable but not my desire.”

“So did you want to keep going, or…?”

“Absolutely not.”

He tried not to look too disappointed.

“—Until we move somewhere more comfortable. This chest is digging into my skin terribly. My bed _is_ right over there, though…”

**Author's Note:**

> Eyyyyy so I wanted to try writing something lighthearted to keep me fresh. Initially I'd set out to try and write a fake-dating fic, but after quite a bit of trying I decided they were both too smart to realistically agree to something like that. SO instead I wrote something almost equally contrived with the good old "love spell" scenario.
> 
> I was also planning on going FULL SPICY but obviously chickened out a bit at the end. I felt like this is more in my comfort level tbqh. 
> 
> Find me on twitter [@chrrybubblegum](https://twitter.com/chrrybubblegum)
> 
> (Shout-out to [Echo_of_Eden](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Echo_of_Eden/pseuds/Echo_of_Eden) for giving this a proofread. She writes some nice Leokumi too, so give her a look!)


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